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Post-1945 German Conservatism, Intellectual and Political International Conference 12Th April 2019 Budapest, Hungary Organizers Post-1945 German Conservatism, Intellectual and Political International Conference 12th April 2019 Budapest, Hungary Organizers Research Institute of Politics and Government, József Eötvös Research Centre, National University of Public Service Institute of Philosophy of the Research Centre of the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Conference director Ferenc Hörcher, o director, Research Institute of Politics and Government, József Eötvös Research Centre, National University of Public Service, o senior researcher, Institute of Philosophy of the Research Centre of the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Conference assistants Kálmán Tóth, junior researcher, Research Institute of Politics and Government, József Eötvös Research Centre, National University of Public Service Ádám Smrcz, postgraduate researcher, Research Institute of Politics and Government, József Eötvös Research Centre, National University of Public Service Venue Institute of Philosophy, Research Centre of the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 4. Tóth Kálmán Street, 1097 Budapest, 7th Floor, Trapéz Room Conference Topic German conservatism has not been „comme il faut” for some time in the 20th century. In particular, after World War II, it became unacceptable in public discourse in Germany. This was partly due to the debate on the political and moral responsibility for the war and the Holocaust, and partly it was a consequence of a general shift in Europe towards the left in the post-war situation. This statement is true both about the political credit and the intellectual prestige of conservatism: both of them were regarded as discredited in the Nazi period. In this situation Christian democracy was the ideological wing which could take over the role of traditionalism and conservatism in the German speaking world, and arguably German intellectual conservatism also declined in the second half of the century. After the fall of the iron curtain and the „unification” of Germany and Europe, and the rise of a world of new challenges in the 21. century, conservatism itself might be envisaged to be in need of an intellectual rejuvenation. After all, it might have its benevolent role and function to balance the ideological scene both in Germany and Europe, in a world of harsh populist and nationalist criticisms of globalisation. In order to make that possible, there is a need to reconstruct the post-war fate of German conservatism, political and intellectual. This workshop, organised by the Institute of Philosophy of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Research Institute for Politics and Government of the National University of Public Service, aims to uncover the underground and grass root currents of the non-Nazi German conservatism in the post-war political and intellectual milieu. Its aim is to bridge the gap between classical early 20th century German conservatism, and late-20th century, early 21. century conservative ideas and political visions. Participants of the conference will include historians of political thought, legal scholars, historians and philosophers, all of them joining a lively discussion which aims to uncover a mostly hidden intellectual trajectory within German political and intellectual life. It hopes to raise interesting and contestable questions about key players in post-war German conservatism in politics and in the intellectual field. List of Participants Günter Figal guenter.figal at philosophie.uni-freiburg.de University of Freiburg Tradition as an Event and as a Kind of Freedom. On Gadamer and Beyond Wolfgang Fenske fenske at bdk-berlin.org The Library of Conservatism, Berlin The Ideas of Post-1945 German Conservatism Samuel Garrett Zeitlin sgzeitlin at berkeley.edu University of Chicago, UC Berkeley Indirection and the Rhetoric of Tyranny: Carl Schmitt’s The Tyranny of Values 1960-1967 Clara Maier clara.maier at his-online.de Hamburg Institute for Social Research Conservative German legal thought and the foundation of the Bonn Republic Kai Graef kai.graef at gs.uni-heidelberg.de University of Heidelberg Reinhart Koselleck and the Post-War Conservative Critique of the Philosophy of History Lucia Rubinelli lr391 at cam.ac.uk University of Cambridge, Robinson College Costantino Mortati and the idea of material constitution Joshua Schmeltzer jrs205 at cam.ac.uk Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge The Future of Historicity? Carl Schmitt contra Natural Law Ferenc Hörcher Horcher.Ferenc at uni-nke.hu Research Institute of Politics and Government, Eötvös József Research Centre, NUPS Institute of Philosophy Research Centre for the Humanities Hungarian Academy of Sciences The Böckenförde Dilemma and the Recent European Negation of the Christian Past Péter Varga Varga.Peter at btk.mta.hu Institute of Philosophy Research Centre for the Humanities Hungarian Academy of Sciences Robert Spaemann (1927-2018): Renewal of Catholic Thinking through the Ritter School? Csaba Olay olaycsaba at gmail.com Department of Modern and Contemporary Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy, ELTE BTK Conservatism of the Customary: Ritter and Marquard on the inevitability of the customary Attila Gyulai gyulai.attila at uni-nke.hu Institute for Political Science – HAS Centre for Social Sciences / NUPS Research Institute of Politics and Government Anti-liberalism, conservatism, and realism in Carl Schmitt’s post-war thought Abstracts Tradition as an Event and as a Kind of Freedom. On Gadamer and Beyond. Günther Figal (University of Freiburg) Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics has often, and very likely first by Habermas, been criticized as ‘traditionalistic’ and thus as ‘conservative’. In my paper I will discuss Gadamer’s conception of tradition as developed in ‘Truth and Method’ and point to the ambivalence of this conception. On the one hand Gadamer understands tradition as a kind of autonomous process that determines understanding, while on the other hand he stresses that tradition has to be ‘applied’ to the present. According to the latter version tradition not only effects on the present, but present understanding determines how tradition shall be. I will take up this aspect and sketch a conception of tradition beyond Gadamer according to which tradition can be regarded as a free space for understanding. “The Ideas of Post-WW2 German Conservatism” Wolfgang Fenske (BDK Berlin) West Germany’s conservatism after World War II might be differentiated in four periods: The first, in which a conservative elite tried to re-activate conservative ideals which were common until 1933/34. In the centre of the second period stood the conflict with the ideology of the ‘68 movement and its protagonists. Since the 80s we can speak about a third period with the attempt, to fulfill the missed “spiritual-moral turn” (“geistig-moralische Wende”), that chancellor Helmut Kohl had promised his voters in 1980. Finally, after Germany’s reunification in 1990 we remark the attempt to formulate a conservative position that stands on a national ground and, nevertheless, keeps in mind its European dimension. The lecture will present and reflect the history of conservative ideas along this timeline. Indirection and the Rhetoric of Tyranny: Carl Schmitt’s The Tyranny of Values 1960-1967 Samuel Garrett Zeitlin (University of Chicago, UC Berkeley) Abstract: This article situates Carl Schmitt’s The Tyranny of Values (1960/1967/1979) within the context Schmitt’s 1940s and 1950s op-ed campaign for full amnesty for Nazi war criminals as well as the context of the Veit Harlan trials and the 1958 Lüth Judgment of the German Constitutional Court. The article further examines the revisions to Schmitt’s 1967 version of the text in the light of Karl Löwith’s criticisms of Schmitt in an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from 1964. The article argues that The Tyranny of Values is a work of post- WWII Nazi apologetics, in which Nazi racial theory can be seen being put to polemical ends in the 1960s and 1970s. The article concludes with broader reflections on the relation of Schmitt’s The Tyranny of Values to Nazi discourse in the aftermath of the Second World War and the history of Nazism post 1945. Conservative German legal thought and the foundation of the Bonn Republic Clara Maier (Hamburg Institute for Social Research) Conservative German legal thought and the foundation of the Bonn Republic The paper explores the key components of the political project of post-war West Germany and the role of the Rechtsstaat within it. It argues that the post-war German lawyers and politicians developed a specific reading of the rule of law as an order based on supra-legal values, which had to be defended even against democratic government. Contrary to common conception and the self- understanding of post-war legal theorists like Gustav Radbruch this did not signify a departure from the constitutional theory of the Weimar period. Rather, this paper argues, the decisive innovations in constitutional thought stemmed from the legal and theoretical challenges the Weimar state had faced in its own time from Conservative constitutional thinkers such as Carl Schmitt and Rudolf Smend. As such the German Rechtsstaat, which is so strongly associated with the renewal of German democracy, carries with it a tradition of Conservative legal thought, which systematically and successfully expanded the reach of the judiciary within the political system to the detriment of the legislative and democratic action. Reinhart Koselleck and the Post-War Conservative Critique of the Philosophy
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